Yahoo and TQ scores

[TOXX]

Does anyone have more information regarding Yahoo implementing "TQ scores" on PPC advertising?
Does it only affect US traffic?

 

[sierra]

Not sure what this really means but here is my letter:

"Dear xxxxxx,

Last night Yahoo, our primary search provider, announced to all of their advertisers and partners that they would be implementing a "quality based pricing" system starting immediately in the United States and Canada.

"...quality-based pricing is designed to adjust advertiser pricing based on the quality of traffic coming from our distribution network. Traffic is intended to be priced in a manner that is consistent with the quality delivered to advertisers, based on conversion rates and other proprietary factors.

To assist you in better understanding the level of your traffic quality, we plan to provide you with a Traffic Quality (TQ) score for each of your implementations. TQ scores should be included in your partner reports and communicated as a number from 1 to 10, with 10 being the highest rating.

By pricing traffic commensurate with quality, we believe that we will deliver higher value to our advertisers, thus strengthening our marketplace and driving up monetization for our partners."

This is how the "quality based pricing" system will work at Parked.com. A person comes to one of your domains parked with us, they search and click out to an advertiser, Yahoo will look to see what your traffic quality score is and let's say you are an 8. The advertiser will be charged whatever an 8 is worth, if the click was originally $1.00, I was told that the click would be at least $0.80 but it could be much higher.

We will provide you with your traffic quality score once we receive it today, the TQ scores are supposed to be updated every 2 weeks. Over the next few weeks as we learn how the TQ scores are calculated we should be able to provide a little better guidance on how to increase your scores. If you feel that your score is too low, we should be able to work with you to see how we can improve your score.

Over the next 10 days Yahoo will continue to make improvements to the new system. We do not have any news on when any other countries will be added to the quality based pricing system. One last thing is that this will affect all parking companies that are using Yahoo, not just Parked.com."​

 

[Acroplex]

In other words, Yahoo & therefore Parked.com that uses them, will arbitrarily pay you based on some formula that will evaluate what your traffic is worth. This could be anything: the domain name itself, its TLD, its listing in Yahoo or other directories etc.

The bottom line is, Yahoo will pay you less per hit - because they can!

Boycott Yahoo now and use parking companies that do not use Yahoo.

 

[sierra]

In other words, Yahoo & therefore Parked.com that uses them, will arbitrarily pay you based on some formula that will evaluate what your traffic is worth. This could be anything: the domain name itself, its TLD, its listing in Yahoo or other directories etc.

The bottom line is, Yahoo will pay you less per hit - because they can!

Boycott Yahoo now and use parking companies that do not use Yahoo.

exactly... what it means is less $

Whilst I may wait until the dust settles - I'll be looking at other options I think longer term

 

[Donny]

Actually Yahoo doesn't not look at the domain at all. From my understanding it's all about the conversions. It's the same way with Google, except Yahoo is doing it on a user level, so if your domains convert well, you will be rewarded for it.

We are waiting for our international numbers from Yahoo right now, but the changes we have seen so far are very small. I've seen some people that are going to be very happy because they are much higher than normal, but I didn't see any that were large drops. Then again it was the first day.

Donny

 

[Acroplex]

Talk about sweetening the pill.

At a "user level" Yahoo will have the opportunity to pinch pennies, nickel and dime the domainers while getting the SAME revenue from the advertisers. If you can't see the grand theft that will be performed right before your eyes by Yahoo - that has seen its revenue decline dramatically and wants to up its earnings before the next shareholders' meeting - then you need new glasses.

 

[Donny]

Acroplex - There is one good thing about user level instead of the way Google normally does it. On a user level, if you suck, well you get paid like you suck. But in a large group, if you suck, you just bring the overall score of the group down, but you still get paid.

I'm not saying the "quality based pricing" is good, bad, or ugly (GBU). It's just another way to weed out the bad guys, it's not designed to hurt any of the good ones.

Donny

 

[Acroplex]

Traffic is traffic. The nazi approach that traffic is bad because it does not convert as a sale, is well - nazi. I think that I'd rather kick some nazi ass than succumb to the nazi approach. What you do think? Are you pro or anti nazi?

 

[Name Trader]

I really don't like the user level approach. Domain level would have been better, imho. So now, if you have 10 high traffic/TQ domains and 100 low traffic/TQ domains, those high TQ domains will be penalized.

 

[Acroplex]

Yahoo is cashflow starved. This measure is nothing more than another teat for Yahoo to milk.

Read the board http://messages.finance.yahoo.com/mb/YHOO

 

[TOXX]

I REALLY hope this does NOT mean lower PPC rates from Yahoo!

 

[Name Trader]

I fear it will do exactly that.

 

[canswift]

Trafficz.com also

Hi, it's not just Parked.com domain parkers who have received this "Dear User" email about Yahoo traffic "quality" scores. I logged in tonight to my Trafficz.com account and received almost word for word, the same letter about Yahoo TQ scores. Trafficz tried to make this sound like a positive move for holders of high traffic domains.

I think the reality is that high traffic domains will remain at about where they are now on a PPC basis, and everyone else will go down. I don't quite understand the correlation between high traffic = high quality. Some of my domains are quite modest traffic but very targeted. If someone types-in one of those (low traffic) domains and clicks on an ad, I contend that this is quite a high-quality click for the advertiser.

Oh, rats, just as I had all my domains optimised too...now where to go?

CanBrit

 

[sierra]

I think the reality is that high traffic domains will remain at about where they are now on a PPC basis, and everyone else will go down. I don't quite understand the correlation between high traffic = high quality. Some of my domains are quite modest traffic but very targeted. If someone types-in one of those (low traffic) domains and clicks on an ad, I contend that this is quite a high-quality click for the advertiser.

Oh, rats, just as I had all my domains optimised too...now where to go?

CanBrit

This is my position too CanBrit (modest tfc but targeted) - I've got a portfolio of a few hundred domains newly registered (most have never been registered or some have a long ago history). All my domains are around the one theme (my research area) - and was hoping that I would develop 10% of these and maybe redirect others and park the rest. I will not fair well with this new 'rating system' I fear (but I'll wait and see).

 

[07CF]

Are anyone's revenue's falling yet due to Yahoo TQ scores?

 

[vbigdeli]

Mine!

 

[Badger]

Does it only affect US traffic?

At the moment..

The Yahoo panama project is in no way any different to google smartpricing. And as if it was never gonna happen.. I was told from a pretty serious source that PPC had become a plane crash waiting to happen. Advertisers unhappy, huge lawsuits, rife click fraud - something had to give. The happy medium thats been found is the environment were in now.. Y & G will protect their advertising base above anything else - and would you expect them to do anything else...?

Next comes banned users, banned IP's, banned domains... being able to park a domain with a google or yahoo sub-syndicator will become as strict as google adsense for content rules (and policing of same) are now.. You break the rules (click fraud / TM domains, even owning domains that are bad traffic converters) youre may find yourself banned everywhere...

 

[Acroplex]

Sometimes, I pick my nose. I hope Yahoo or Google won't ban me.

 

[vbigdeli]

My revenue is down at Goldkey...why they didn't provide any TQ scores?